Violet and Ruiridh tiptoe away as the formal audience to welcome the new ambassador from Ysthar dissolves into a cheerful muddle of gossip and food. It's important for him to learn names and faces and the patterns of power, but what grown-ups think is interesting small talk is, almost universally, boring beyond words.
So they steal a pot of green tea (a gift from the new ambassador, each leaf worth more than its weight in gold), a plate of miniature honey cakes dusted with sugar and rose petals (equally extravagant), and a lavender tablecloth from a cupboard in the back of the great hall, and set up their own banquet under the lilacs in the their mother's private garden.
"When you're Lord of Alinor, you should hold all banquets in the garden," Violet tells her brother as she pours tea into a pair of hastily conjured cups.
"But what if it rains?" Ruiridh asks with a worried air.
"That's what the magic is for," she says, and shoves a honey cake into his mouth before he can echo their mother's lecture on the responsibilities of power.
From Tiny Seeds (Greenwing & Dart)
So they steal a pot of green tea (a gift from the new ambassador, each leaf worth more than its weight in gold), a plate of miniature honey cakes dusted with sugar and rose petals (equally extravagant), and a lavender tablecloth from a cupboard in the back of the great hall, and set up their own banquet under the lilacs in the their mother's private garden.
"When you're Lord of Alinor, you should hold all banquets in the garden," Violet tells her brother as she pours tea into a pair of hastily conjured cups.
"But what if it rains?" Ruiridh asks with a worried air.
"That's what the magic is for," she says, and shoves a honey cake into his mouth before he can echo their mother's lecture on the responsibilities of power.